The unhappy, child-encumbered housewife-trapped-in-stale-marriage almost certainly has the dubious honour of being both the most-experienced and (until the 20th century) least-written plot in Western literature. I understand why it’s important, but sometimes it feels like every novelist discovered it all at once and wants to lend her (or his) “unique” “perspective”. For that reason (TWIST!) it was a rare pleasure to encounter a book that explored the issue from an ACTUAL unique perspective. You might be aware of the synopsis (it was, after all, on the bestseller list): the bulk of the North American population of migrating monarch butterflies, which usually overwinters in Mexico, mysteriously turns up on the side of a mountain in Tennessee instead, on the farm of the Turnbow family.
The main character, Dellarobia (named after a misspelled pinecone wreath and not after the artist) is an intelligent woman whose education failed her and who fell into teen pregnancy and marriage almost without realising what was happening. Her only life experience was of a redneck small town, she followed the path that was hardwired into her DNA and wound up…not where she expected. MUCH LIKE THE BUTTERFLIES. (It’s unfair of me to be this sarcastic, really – the message is mostly subtler than that and really very well-written. But that’s what’s in MY genes.) Kingsolver mercifully avoids making all the supporting characters into what we expect them to be. The mother-in-law character is particularly well-done, at first just a monster, but with unexpected layers gradually emerging. I like that the novel manages to achieve real substance both as a family/personal drama and as a climate change parable, when one of those elements could, with less skill and attention, easily have given way to the other. If there’s a fault, it’s that the male characters are sometimes a bit flat, but I have difficulty getting worked up over that when complex and troubled male leads have been the norm for millennia. Overall, a satisfying and interesting page-turner from a writer who rarely fails to deliver.